“Hazard and Disaster Management”

Assignment No. 1

BATCH 2017
Section CV-B

Submitted By:

Muhammad Usman Gill Roll #: 17L-4602

Muhammad Emaz Azam Roll #: 17L-4601
Rana Sarmad Shabir Roll #: 17L-4609
Salman Chaudhry Roll #: 17L-4674

(April 28, 2021)

Submitted to: Engr. Nasir Butt

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

 National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences
Department of Civil Engineering

ABSTRACT

Disasters are situations that can cause severe damage to individuals and communities
including loss of lives and livelihood assets along with damage to ecosystem. Disaster can
also have negative impact on agriculture, environment and infrastructure of country. So, to
counter these effects of disasters we need to analyze and reduce the disasters risks through a
systematic process. We cannot avoid these disasters however we can reduce them by taking
some precautionary measure such as Punjab has PUNJAB EMERGENCY SERIVCE (1122)
and national assembly has also passed an ordinance named Pakistan Emergency Services
Ordinance and Pakistan Emergency and Fire Code. Further this paper elaborates how risk
reduction department of Pakistan works under critical situations.

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 National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences
Department of Civil Engineering

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We have put our efforts in this research. Indeed, it would not have been achievable without
support and help from the university and many individuals. We would like to say heartfelt
thanks to all of them.
We would also like to express our gratitude towards our parents & Course Instructor
Engineer Sir Nasir Butt for his kind co-operation and encouragement which helped us in
completion of this project.

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Department of Civil Engineering

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................................................... 3

LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................... 5

LIST OF ABBREVATIONS ..................................................................................................... 6

1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 7

2 Cause of Pakistan’s Vulnerability to Disasters .................................................................. 8

2.1 Social Vulnerability..................................................................................................... 8

2.2 Physical Vulnerability ................................................................................................. 9

2.3 Economic vulnerability ............................................................................................... 9

3 Future Disaster Trends in Pakistan .................................................................................. 10

4 Legal and Institutional Structure for Disaster Pakistan ................................................... 10

5 Institutional Structure for Disaster Risk Reduction ......................................................... 11

5.1 National Disaster Management Authority................................................................. 11

5.2 Provincial Disaster Management Authority .............................................................. 12

5.3 District Disaster Management Authority .................................................................. 12

5.4 Local Disaster Management Authority ..................................................................... 13

5.5 National Institute of Disaster Management ............................................................... 13

6 Problems in the current system ........................................................................................ 13

7 Recommendation for sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction in Pakistan .......................... 14

8 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 15

9 References ........................................................................................................................ 16

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 National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences
Department of Civil Engineering

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2-1 Geographic view of Pakistan ................................................................................... 8

Figure 5-1 Institutional Framework for Disaster Risk Management ....................................... 12

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 National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences
Department of Civil Engineering

LIST OF ABBREVATIONS

DRM Disaster Risk Management.

NDMC National Disaster Management Commission.
NDMA National Disaster Management Authority.
PDMC Provincial Disaster Management Commission.
PDMA Provincial Disaster Management Authority.
DDMA District Disaster Management Authority.
DCO District Coordination Officer.
DPO District Police Officer.
EDO Executive District Officer.
NIDM National Institute of Disaster Management.

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 National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences
Department of Civil Engineering

1 Introduction

Disaster is a situation that causes substantial losses and damage to communities and
individuals, possibly including losses of life and livelihood assets and damage to the
ecosystem, which leaves the affected communities unable to function normally. There is no
denying fact that disasters always have negative impacts on the overall development of
country affecting the important sectors such as agriculture, environment, infrastructure and
health. In addition to these impacts, disasters also affect the economic development by
increasing poverty.
Disaster risk reduction is the process of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to
analyze and reduce the causal factors of disasters. Reducing exposure to hazards, lessening
the vulnerability of people and property, wise management of land and the environment, and
improving preparedness and early warning for adverse events are all examples of disaster risk
reduction.
Pakistan is located in South Asia and it shares borders with India, Iran, Afghanistan, and
China. The total land area covers 770,875 km2, which is divided into three major Geographic
regions: The Balochistan Plateau, Indus River plains, as well as the northern mountain
ranges. The total population of Pakistan is now more than 220 million according to the latest
census. The climatic variations are mainly due to the topography while most of the country is
covered by dry deserts – 60 percent of the total land area is classified as arid, receiving less
than 200 mm of rainfall annually. Despite the arid to semi-arid conditions, Pakistan is
surrounded by a wide range of ecosystems, which are categorized into 12 vegetative zones
from snowfields and cold deserts to swamps and mangrove forests at the Indus River plains.
Pakistan is situated within a hazard-prone region and is among the most disaster-prone
countries in South Asia, having suffered an estimated US$ 18 billion in damages and losses
during the past decade. The country is exposed to a variety of natural disasters such as floods,
cyclones, earthquakes, landslides and droughts. Heat waves in the early summer may also
cause flooding at various sites due to many rivers being snow-fed.

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2 Cause of Pakistan’s Vulnerability to Disasters

Rapid population growth, uncontrolled development and unplanned expansion of
infrastructure are the most common factors that result in more people being vulnerable to
natural hazards and disasters.

Figure 2-1 Geographic view of Pakistan

2.1 Social Vulnerability

Disasters have always had adverse impacts on human life. The flooding of 2010 affected an
estimated of 18 million people, caused 1984 casualties, displaced 150,000 families and
damaged or destroyed approximately 1.8 million houses across the 78 impacted districts.
Severe impacts were caused by the disruption on the conveyance of health services as the
lack of medical equipment, medication and displaced staff was restricting the effectiveness of
relief efforts. Due to this tragedy monthly household incomes of people in the affected
regions dropped by half, and livelihoods of people recovered after a long time. In the time of
flooding and also at the time of 2005 earthquake health facilities affected a lot and this
became the cause of many diseases. The education of children suffered a lot and the children

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of low-income people were forced to drop out of school to seek employment opportunities to
support their families.
2.2 Physical Vulnerability
It has been verified that in regions of high poverty the increase in physical vulnerability
follows the rising trend as well. The homeless and the poor tend to construct low cost houses
with easily available local materials, and these structures are susceptible to damages of
disasters due to lack of engineering knowledge. The agricultural sector is an important part of
country’s GDP and this sector is facing challenges of erosion, salinity and waterlogging and
these processes are the contributor in increased food insecurity due to unmanaged land use
and due to impacts of climate change. The well developed areas and major areas of economic
activities have a very low risk, while low income districts with high numbers of vulnerable
populations have a very high risk of flooding, earthquakes, droughts or cyclones. Rapid
unplanned urbanization is another factor for increasing disaster risks in Pakistan. Karachi is
the mega city of Pakistan as most of the economic activities takes place there and this city is
growing at an annual rate of 5 percent, and vulnerabilities to disasters are also increasing,
inadequate housing being developed on marginal land is more prone to flood and earthquake
damages. Urban expansion in Lahore Metropolitan region has been affecting the ground
water quality due to industrial pollution and municipal waste and environmental degradation
has the negative impact on economic development.
2.3 Economic vulnerability
Several disasters have affected Pakistan and also affected the growth of country’s economy.
As a hazard-prone country, Pakistan have a high exposure to hydro-meteorological, and
geophysical hazards with reoccurring and seasonal characteristics and the damages caused by
earthquakes, flooding, droughts, landslides and storms are also common. Almost 65 percent
of the population in Pakistan reside in rural regions and are mainly dependent on agriculture
and the availability of water for irrigation. Thus farmers are disproportionately vulnerable to
variations in the regional weather patterns because they often do not have access to improved
seeds or advanced technologies which could lessen climatic risks as they are unaware of
modern farming and irrigation techniques. Due to lack of knowledge, climate change has
forced them to adopt methods which increase vulnerability to droughts as a trade-off for
environmental resilience. Disasters have an acute impact on economic growth and is harming
the human capital and infrastructure but also the annual GDP of country. The Kashmir
earthquake of 2005, the flooding of 2010, earthquake in 2011, and another severe flooding in

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2012 affected the economy of Pakistan badly. On average, these disasters have led to heavy
reduction of the national GDP annually and forced people to divert resources from productive
sectors towards rebuilding and recovery activities. Due to flooding in 2010, unprecedented
monsoonal rains induced heavy flooding of the Indus river, which spread through Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh, and this left a lot of land area covered in water.
As a result, many people were left homeless during the rains and they suffered bad financial
condition.

3 Future Disaster Trends in Pakistan

According to the National Disaster Management Authority NDMA, the analysis of hazard
risk and vulnerabilities tells about the scenario of people around the hazardous areas. The
people would be living in hazardous areas and new settlements would continue to establish
with the increasing population. This situation will get even worse in the upcoming years as
the population of Pakistan is expected to get double in the next 25-30 years. On the other
hand, the intensity and severity of other hazards in on rise e.g. flooding, soil erosion, drought
and land sliding which causes environmental degradation and climate change. The areas that
can be affected by land sliding are mainly some regions of Kashmir and certain areas of
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Small scale isolated landslide hazards happen frequently in the above
mentioned regions. The frequency of land sliding may increase in the future as the forest
cover is shrinking by 3.1%. Due to topographical features, most of the parts of Pakistan are
vulnerable to land sliding. From these scenarios, it is clear that the hazards in future will be
more frequent and severe and their social, economic and environmental impact would be
greater than before. Many regions that were clear of these hazards will also face such
vulnerability in the future [1].

4 Legal and Institutional Structure for Disaster Pakistan

Disasters are on the rise and the high impact of these natural hazards cannot be estimated
properly. There are different hazards that are affecting the community like Water scarcity,
soil erosion and land sliding. Thus, there is a need to overcome these hazards to protect the
environment. We can enhance information exchange and cross border cooperation to ensure
disaster risk reduction. Different emergency ordinances have been established [2].

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Some of them are given below:

 Pakistan Emergency Services Ordinance and Pakistan Emergency and Fire
Code
This emergency services ordinance was established in 2002. This ordinance was
formed in response to the fire ignited in the Shaheed-e-Millat secretariat building as it
affected a massive number of people. This act has also empowered the Pakistan
Emergency and Fire Council to formulate rules and regulations for the safety of life
and property from fires, explosions and other hazardous materials.
 Punjab Emergency Service
This was established earlier in 2004 that lead to the launching of 1122 service. This
service was assigned for certain tasks like sensitive emergency response, monitoring
disaster response and medical evacuations.
 Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA)
The ERRA institution was formed after the earthquake. It took effect on March 14,
2011. It consists of powers such as to undertake the construction and development
work, seeking information from any person or institution and the transfer of the works
to other government agencies [3].

5 Institutional Structure for Disaster Risk Reduction

5.1 National Disaster Management Authority

National Disaster Management Commission (NDMC) was established under the NDMA Act.
The Commission consists of members including Prime Minister as the Chairperson of the
Commission, Leader of Opposition, key line ministers, Governor (KPK), Chief Ministers of
all Provinces, PM AJ&K, Chief Executive of Northern Areas, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
Committee and one representative of civil society are the members.
The NDMC lays down policies, approves national plans and issues guidelines on DRM. It
provides funds and constitutes advisory committees as and when required. National Disaster
Management Authority (NDMA) is responsible for implementing, coordinating and
monitoring of whole spectrum of DRM under the guidelines and policies laid down by
NDMC.

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Figure 5-1 Institutional Framework for Disaster Risk Management

5.2 Provincial Disaster Management Authority

The Federal structure is replicated in provinces with Provincial Disaster Management
Commission (PDMC), headed by their respective Chief Ministers and the same way is
responsible for policy making at provincial level. The Provincial Disaster Management
Authority (PDMA) is headed by a Director General (DG), who is appointed by provincial
government. PDMA is responsible for formulation, coordination and implementation of the
DRM policies and plans for province.
5.3 District Disaster Management Authority
District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) will be chaired by the head of district
council and comprise of District Coordination Officer (DCO), District Police Officer (DPO)
and Executive District Officer (EDO) Health and other district level officers. It will be
responsible for formulation, implementation and coordination of national and provincial
DRM polices and plans at district level.

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5.4 Local Disaster Management Authority

Local authorities under DDMA shall ensure the availability of the relevant human and
material resources at time of disaster or disaster threat. Furthermore, the authorities will also
ensure enforcing buildings codes in their jurisdiction and carrying out all other pre and post
disaster activities.
5.5 National Institute of Disaster Management
The Federal Government shall establish National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM)
for planning and promoting DRM related research, training and development of national
data-base on policies, prevention mechanisms and mitigation measures. A national disaster
response force shall be established under NDMA for specialist response to a threatening
disaster situation or disaster. Federal and provincial governments shall constitute National
and Provincial Disaster Management Funds respectively, which shall be financed by
proposed budgetary allocation, grants, loans, aids and donations etc.

6 Problems in the current system

The disaster Risk Management system in Pakistan is facing multiple issues and gaps. The
foremost issue is the reactive mindset at both policy making and society level. Then later it
come the governance issue which include multiplicity of institutions with overlapping or
conflicting jurisdiction and poor formal linkage and coordination between key line agencies
and departments, led by gaps in legal framework. Then it also includes the issue of
institutional, technological and human resource capacity.
Until the enforcement of disaster management, Emergency response was the most
predominant approach in Pakistan to deal with disasters. Although we have been claiming a
proactive approach to DRM in the aftermath of wide-scale destruction caused by the 2005
earthquake but people at federal, provincial and district level still have a mindset of “relief”.
A disaster occurs and they can’t avert it, because it is beyond their control, they provide relief
goods to the victims and that’s the end of the story.
The institutions and communities are not well aware and sensitized to treat disaster risk
reduction as an integral part of sustainable development. Although at the federal level the
system enjoys a little political support but at provincial level the fact is that no meeting of
PDMC in the Punjab and Sindh took place to date, which reflects a lack of ownership of the
issue and a trivial level of political support to the DRM system. Now, if we look into third

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tier “District Level” which is the key point as it connects with the people, the situation is even
worse. Here, the subject is handled by an officer who has many others job to do in his routine
work and he comes back to this portfolio only when a disaster hits, means there is a dearth of
specialized human and financial resources.

7 Recommendation for sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction in

Pakistan
 The subject of Disaster Risk Management should be treated as priority. People at the helm of
affairs must brush aside this reactive approach not only in the sphere of drafting the policies
but also in the implementation process specifically. For instance, DG PDMA Baluchistan
shared that he organized a competition of preparing a District Disaster Management plan
among all the districts of Baluchistan which motivated all the officials to better prepare
themselves for any kind of disasters. It seems to be an excellent practice of engaging the
officials proactively. This needs to be replicated in other parts of the country as well.
 The communities should be well aware and sensitized about disaster risk reduction and the
institutions should incorporate DRR as an integral part of sustainable development.
 The concerned Institutions should conduct specialized courses and capacity building
workshops for the civil servants and people working in the sector.
 The government must initiate awareness campaigns by utilizing effective mass media tools to
sensitize and educate the common masses about the risk reduction mitigation measures.
 The key elements of the subject should be included in the educational curriculum.
 The efforts should be made to resume trainings and exercises like NDC at collage high school
level to train the youth for effective disaster management operations.

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8 Conclusion
Over the last few years, the federal and provincial governments have taken various initiatives
aimed at reducing structural and non-structural vulnerabilities to different hazards and
building capacities of government officials and communities. However, there is a need to
create synergies within and among provincial and national initiatives and making optimum
use of on-going efforts. The implementation of such activities in isolation is not likely to
achieve desired results. Therefore, it is imperative for the federal and provincial governments
to dovetail all such initiatives of structural and non-structural nature within the holistic
framework of DRR in order to effectively contribute to the national agenda of making
Pakistan a disaster resilient country. But measure from as Government are not necessary
People should also have to do some measure at their end. Like in COVID’19 situations,
Government is trying to do its best but people are not serious about this pandemic which
causes the severe attack of 3rd wave.

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9 References

[1] T. Mehmood, "Country Report of Pakistan," Asian Disaster Reduction, 2015.

[2] Attar Ur Rehman, Aamir Nawaz Khan, Rajib Shaw, Disaster Risk Reduction Approaches
in Pakistan, Japan: Springer, 2015.
[3] Muhammad Yahhya Maqbool, Dr. Shahzad Hussain, "Institutionalization of Disaster Risk
Management in Pakistan," ISSRA Papers, 2014.

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